I played with it last night and kind of started to figure out that was the answer. I have to tell you, as a user that has experienced other PLM solutions and trying not to be too negative, that the way that Autodesk has this set-up is awful. I have used Intralink, Siemen's PLM, and Solidwork's Vault. In comparison, to these programs Autodesk Vault is overly controlled and at the same time poorly thought out. Because of this I would NEVER reccomend this program to anyone!
Several key things to keep in mind as I see it are:
1. I really don't have a problem with the idea of the project file if it was better thought out. Everyone has some form of config file that governs behavior. If the project file were more like these and let you just point to the right locations (Vault, Style files, Content Center, Library,etc it would be fine. It should, however, give you more flexibility than it does. In allowing you to point to multiple content center folders (or just one you can sub-divide), and multiple libraries (which it does or just one you can sub-divide which it does somewhat), and multiple project locations (general read-write) locations (which it doesn't) than it would be fine.
2. How ridiculous is it that you cannot copy out of a Library location!! Have you guys at Autodesk ever actually talked to any of your customers? We want to do something that is totally typical of most companies. We want some template starting points in our library (they are our 'standard' parts) but often jobs require some customizations for that application. We would like our project engineers to be able to copy a standard out of the library to their project folder (as a starting point) and customize it their to their needs. We want this "library" to be read only to most and writable by a few librarians. This way we keep the starting point clean without constant monitoring. When the Vault has the ability to control this read-write capacity there is absolutely no reason to have the project file "rethink" and redundantly control this. Intralink controls this by the user permissions, so does Solidworks Vault and so does Siemens PLM. Who at Autodesk though it would be a great idea to invent a "square" wheel!! Of course it is also ludicrous to have engineers not be able to copy designs from here.
3. How many ridiculous warning boxes do you need. If a person checks out a member of a family table let them know it is a good idea to check out the whole family to keep the links alive and give them the opportunity to do it there. So when they check it in their will be no out of dates.
4. Having three different project files of which two have to be removed from Vault (after use) is a ridiculous "sham" patch to fix functionality that should be there in the first place. I am of course referring to the "library editor" project file to make changes, updates, and additions to library files. I am also referring to the "Copy Design" project file that allows yout to copy library files out of library to custom designs.
5. Would anyone except your team of programmers want to name their content center folder "en-US". If you were going to not allow proper sub-division of Content Center than why put that second level there at all! Do your really think that many companies are going to use your product for multi-national collaboration (to want en-US, Japan, China, etc language subdivisions) when it works this poorly?
Long and short of this is that from my experience, so far, Inventor was an afterthought for Autodesk and I guess they still don't take themselves seriously in this market since they have redundancies in Inventor that make it not work well with Vault. That's ashame since most user already are parameteric primary and 2-D secondary. Part of that world is the ability to work revision control and configuration managment through a PDM solution that, hopefully, you can link to your MRP solution. It's ashame you do not get this because your talking about a small amount of functionality added to your program that right now just provides a great selling stance to convince previous AutoCAD companies to use Solidworks or ProE instead! Who is doing the thinking at Autodesk and are they talking to customers at all?
I will be able to resolve my issues with some bizarre work-arounds and some customizations to the way we use the Vault (not using library files and not using content center) instead I will make folders that contain these parts then just lock them down by my neutral, phantom Administrator log-in. I can't reiterate enough how poorly thought out the Inventor-Vault link is and how embarrased I would be of the way this product works (if I ran this division)!! You guys should be ashamed and I can tell from the message boards I am a member of the majority and not the minority on this thought!
I look forward to hearing if Autodesk's Vault team plans to work on fixing any of these obvious software flaws (not functionality: flaws)
![Autodesk Design & Make Report](https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/1350519iCB55845EBFC43016/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999" "Autodesk Design & Make Report")